T-SQL Tuesday 102: Giving Back

T-SQL Tuesday

Originally started by Adam Machanic ( blog | twitter ), this month is hosted by Riley Major ( blog | twitter ) and he is asking us to look to the future…

Pick some way you can help our community. […] Then, make a plan– a real plan, with specific steps and dates. […] Then, and this is the important part, you’re going to write it down for the world to see.

Or tell us about the past…

[…] tell us how and why and you started. How did you discover the community’s need? How did you figure out what your role would be in helping? How did you learn the skills you needed to contribute? Where did you find the confidence to take the leap? How would you recommend others proceed?

Past

Seeing as I’m soon be moving back to Ireland for a new position I figured that I’d be a bit self-indulgent and talk about the past.

It's official now; notice handed in and end date set. Accepted a Production DBA job back in Ireland.

Sad leaving work though. Great colleagues I'm going to miss. Thank you for taking me in as a Jr DBA and training me up!

I’ve been a member of the SQL community in London for the past 2 years and 3 months and I’ve loved every minute of it.

It started off small, going to the user group in Reading every time that my Senior has been going and I can get a lift.

Slowly moving on to creating a blog 2 months after I started to document what I’ve been learning and attempting to stick to minimum of 1 post a week (currently at 89 posts including this one).

From applying to help out with the PASS DBA Fundamentals Virtual Group ( site | twitter | YouTube ) which allowed me to check out multiple different webinars, interact with people all around the world, and even get to go to the PASS Summit last year! (We’re so close to 4,000 subscribers to the DBAFundamentals YouTube channel!)

Then came a taste of PowerShell, moving to becoming a contributor to dbatools(that’sme!) and dbachecks, to helping a SQL family member with reviewing his PowerShell code (can’t wait until he releases it, he’s done an amazing job all by himself for a self-proclaimed noob 🙂 )

Finally culminating in going from an attendee to SQLBits last year in Telford to becoming a volunteer to SQLBits this year in London (if you ever get the chance to volunteer here then do it! Tough; yes. Worth: hell yes!)

It has been an experience that I can honestly look back on and say “Yes, I would do that again”.

Future

The future is no different. I’m sure there are going to be challenging times ahead but I’m really looking forward to the future as I sincerely believe that the Irish SQL Community is only growing from strength to strength.

With User Groups, conferences, virtual groups, blogging, and just general SQL Community activities, the future has never looked so busy.

I’m hoping that with a reduction from a 3 hour commute to and from work I’ll be able to help out more.

But we were asked to write down our plans to help our community, so here they are:

Contribute more to Open Source tools used by community members

Submit and speak a talk to any speaking opportunity for SQL community members.

Dive into blogging topics that require some proper research rather than stick exclusively with quick, easy ones.

Get involved with the SQL community in Ireland

Improve upon the work that I’m doing for the community already in order to improve upon the work that I’m doing for myself.